Mid-November

November has cemented my thoughts that I don’t like teaching. I do like my kids, they are pretty cute and when they shut their mouths and try to work hard they are almost perfect. That rarely happens though. The truth is the kids would be easy to handle if I had any clue what I was doing. Since I received zero training and I have almost no idea of what I am doing, I blunder along daily and figure out as I go how to explain things like 3 digit addition and subtraction, conjunctions, proper nouns and ecosystems. I still feel like I yell all the time and because (believe it or not) I do not like to yell all the time I am making an effort to talk in a very soft but stern librarian voice. Let you know how that one goes.

One recent addition to life is being an usher. A friend of a friend finds people to work at fancy events, showing people to their seats and passing stuff out etc at a pretty decent wage for a night's work. Chrissie and I did one wedding, which was the gaudiest display of wealth I have ever seen in my life. Their wedding planner was probably thinking “What are the most expensive things you can put in one room?” To which the answer was orchids, lilies, candles, sushi (no one ate), open bar, 20 piece band, concert pianist, well-known DJ, outdoor and indoor venue, heating lamps, full table settings for the sit-down dinner that was not served, laser type lights on the walls, a venue in a private community, fur on everyone, tiki torches, camera men, video camera men, and my favorite the video crane. All this and it was only an engagement party. Apparently there were lots of famous people there, but because I have no Egyptian celebrity facial recognition I am sure they walked right past me and I am smiled at them like I smiled at the rest of the chumps.

Really my favorite three things about the event were…
1) The enormous amounts of blue eye-shadow the makeup artist put on me. Yes, that’s right we got our makeup done and all we did was stand there and smile by a door.

2) My poodle like early 90s prom up-do. I made the lady tuck a few strands in here and there and not let all the curls hang to the right side of my head. Centered is usually better with these things.

3) The four Asian nannies who must have been forced to wear matching Chinese embroidered dresses. You know these classic Chinese dresses, I think they are called Mandarin dresses and they have the buttons on the shoulders with no sleeves. Who would do that to their nanny? The bride-to-be must have wanted them to match the sushi and orchids.

Pictures of the event from across the pool/pond/lake in the compound.

Looking good Faye, yeah right! This picture is for you Amber :)

Joining the gym has not happened yet. I did however manage to go once alone and promptly loose my iPod. I am trying not to think about this past event because it makes me want to cry for hours about all the music that can no longer flood my ears. If you happen to have an extra one kicking around send it my way!

On the self-improvement front I have started trading Arabic for English lessons. After two lessons I can sort of pronounce 10 out of the 28 letters and know a few more words. I cannot recognize the letters or even come close to reading squiggly, don’t get your hopes up for me to read you the Koran at bed time when I get back. I thought I would be able to stomach not having a clue what people were saying around me, but curiosity is forcing me to learn something. Damn. Another top priority is learning how to cook Egyptian foods and desserts, so much honey yummy! I bought a cookbook and will be stumbling through the kitchen for the rest of my time here.

Speaking of food my favorite holiday is only days away! Yeah for Thanksgiving! In Cairo we are working on Thursday and it is parent’s day at that. Pray for me, I think the parents are going to eat me alive. Then on Friday we have “Fun Day II” at school. Hopefully there will be some fun unlike Fun Day I. All the teachers are being forced to attend and I am not happy. This means turkey day feasting is put off till Saturday. Oh well. We are hoping to host a big group even though we only have three forks on the kitchen. More news following the event.

On a side note everyone in the whole wide non-American world is beyond happy that America voted for Obama. Well-done America!!! We got congratulated when we came to school and it comes up at least once in all group settings. I am happy that I will be able to come back home if I choose. I would rather have self-enforced exile than McCain enforced exile.

In general I am happy here. Sometimes extremely exhausted with the pace of life (slow and slow and then super fast) and being in a huge city, but good people seem to be filling in the cracks with sunshine. On that cheesy note bye!

White Desert safari

Let me tell you a little about the necessities of life in Cairo, there are many. Bottled water, a good body wash to get rid of the dirt, delivery service, and above all the ability to leave Cairo every once and awhile. If you do not leave the smog, trash, crowds and noise behind it is easy to glaze over all the good things about the city and only remember the ugly nasty things. Luckily I am getting paid a decent salary and can afford to go on small trips here and there.

In order to survive a smog sickened group packed a small bag and got into a mini-van to a jeep where we set off on our adventures in the White Desert. Our journey began at 6:30 am on Friday, an unheard of waking hour here in Cairo.
I actually have no idea which direction we traveled from Cairo because Egyptians do not speak in cardinal directions. In fact what most would call Southern Egypt is known around here as Upper Egypt because of the way the Nile flows, super confusing.

All eight of us crammed into the bounciest ride of my life. Travelers included fellow Kenana teachers Katie, Paul and Chrissie and my Alexandria cohorts Mossad (I spelled his name wrong before, sorry!), Christina and Sherif. We were also joined by Mossad's friend visiting from Syria, Darcy. What a killer group.

I sat in the back the whole time, near the door, probably not the smartest thing because it was ready to pop open at any moments. I feel pretty lucky that I have found seven other people that I can spend this much time with in a car and still like when we get out. That is a hard thing to find, you know?


While we were heading to the White Desert we first had to travel through the Black Desert. Fields, if you can call them that, or rather miles of beige sand covered with shards of black rock. Crazy.


Obligatory tourist picture number one.
Sherif attempting to climb to the top. This trip is first time I have ever wanted to be a a geologist because there were some crazy rocks.

After the Black Desert we stopped in a small oasis to eat lunch. The desert area is still mainly undeveloped besides bedouin farmers. Despite the apparent oxymoron, bedouins are supposed to roam, many have settled down and serve as guides to the desert and farmers. From my limited knowledge they settle around small oasis and use them to irrigate crops and run irrigation troughs through tourist lunch spots. How nice.

Green life.

Magical crystals that will give me power to conquer any obstacles I run into while in Cairo. I found them/they found me while gazing upon the Crystal Mountain, our third safari stop. The sand glittered with crystal/quartz type rocks (here again I must wish I was a geologist).


Massive quartz rock.

Our trip was about half on paved roads and about half off-road. We drove into the White Desert just before sunset and stopped on top of this hill to look out into the beginnings of the white chalky features. One of the my favorite parts of the trip was how we traveled from black sands to white sands and crossed some gray/beige sand in the middle. I really enjoyed watching the sand change color from one absolute to another.

Chalky hills.

Obviously we had to get slightly savage, in order to really commune with mother nature.

Obligatory tourist picture number two.

Most of the rock formations looked a little like mushrooms, skinny on the bottom and big on the top. They also reminded me of coral reefs underwater, which makes sense because this was an ocean eons ago. There were little shells and things in the white rocks, pretty fun to see a really old ocean. This is where we camped out for the night. Our guide set up a small seating area, aka covered the ground with matts and rugs. Then he set about cooking us amazing grilled chicken, rice and vegies. We ate like kings and then took a short walk to another nearby caravan. They were larger and had guides who played the towuulah (totally spelled wrong) drum and sang of bunch of songs. I happy to report I passed out super early after marshmallows by the fire because I had been up late the night before and woke up way to early. We bundled up in sleeping bags and enjoyed the cold desert night. Before I passed out I did manage to see a tiny desert fox sneak around our camp and plenty of stars.

I woke up the next morning to perfect sunny skies and we got back in the jeep for the drive to mini-van/hotel where we showered and drove back to Cairo. All in all a pretty stellar weekend get-away.

The End

School Field Trip

I got to take a field trip with the KG-1s through grade 3! We traveled about 10 minutes to "Plain Air," an estate turned event spot. Ideally I would say use it for a wedding, but they also hosted kids outings with crafts and games. The teachers just got to sit around by the pool, a perfect field trip if you ask me.

Compared with the field trip the upper grades took I lucked out. My colleagues had to chaperone a trip to an amusement park until 7pm and be responsible for a group of kids. I sat around in the sun, ate lunch and gossiped with the teachers. I had a really good time getting to know a few of them as people and not just women who I work with, good people those guys.

The pool area.

First the kids played games in a line, relay type stuff. Also some jumping up and down.

Also some hand raising.

Then we had lunch. Currently pictured is Adam, Amir's younger brother. We spent the lunch hour talking about baby eagle claws. If you are wondering where the baby eagle claws came from the answer is the the tip of a cactus plant. We also wondered where the baby eagles went, the answer to that question was "up there in the sky." Good answer really.

Then we did some crafts. While they were painting their plaster teddy bears I realized not a single kid knew the "Teddy Bear's Picnic" song, how tragic! If anyone reading this knows the words please send them to me and I will have a teddy bear picnic with my third graders.

Yeah crafts!

Halloween

Halloween, who doesn't love that holiday? I was very lazy about my costume this year, lucky for me there is always the default of black spandex. So versatile!
This time I found some toy guns, some heavy eye makeup and pretended to be a spy!

Taking Chrissie, the flight attendant, hostage.

I was ready to attack the hoards of other Americans we ran into at the US Embassy party, which we did not get into because of a rude front door man. Instead we went, costumes and all, to El Mojito on top the Nile Hilton. Mojito is fast becoming the fall back place and I am thinking I need to branch out a little and explore more clubs, put that on the to-do list.

School shots!

My class!
Youssef, Ziad, Andrew, Amir, Hussein
Farah H, Farah A, Mayar, Habiba and Zeina
Yeah grade three! They got to wear real clothes because it was Fun Day, a fund-raiser for the senior class.

The outside pool, which looks cleaner than it really is. They played house music all day and the "fun" was missing from "fun day," at least for the little ones.

Amir, who is actually American. His mom works at the national school while they live here for a few years. The whole family is awesome, including the first grader Adam.

Mayar in the school cafeteria. The cafeteria only sells junk food, nothing healthy at all. So sad.

Zeina. She is super smart, but very quite.

No worries more school pictures later.

November update

Everyone here is anticipating the election. Sadly I missed the boat on voting abroad, which is the lamest act of my life. Please feel free to yell at me via email, I deserve a good talking too about my responsibilities as a citizens and how democracy only works if people participate. On the other hand I like to think I am improving America's reputation abroad one Egyptian at a time.


I am swearing right now that if McCain wins I will figure out a way to stay out of the country for another year. It is amazing how many people abroad want Obama to win. I have seen a few Egyptians wearing Obama t-shirts and almost all know his name. Paul told a story about having a random man stop him, ask if he was American, show him his store, and his sticker of Obama on the wall.
McCain is unknown and Bush is hated.
Also, they love Bill Clinton, love him!

November is going to be my month to commit to Egypt, finally start acting like I am living here for a year and not just on vacation. Chrissie and I are in talks to join a gym, which sounds mundane but seems to be one of the first steps I take when I commit to a city. We are hustling on Internet and I have stopped trying to convince people that 70 degrees constitutes a winter. My friend Mousaad has offered to give me riding lessons and we are planning on starting as soon as I get paid! Speaking of getting paid the school finally got around to giving us our debit cards and supposedly out paychecks will be deposited into an account at the first of every month. I am not holding my breathe about this one either and am prepared to get paid cash for the rest of the year.

Another small group and I took a trip to the outskirts of the Pyramids and road horses to get pretty sweet view. Plans to go inside the pyramids were scratched when we got a late start. Sadly the days of free pyramids and camping underneath the Sphinx are over, wish I was born in the 50s so I could have seen them in the 70s. Sad face. You now have to pay around 100 pounds, about 20 dollars, and even more to ride a camel or a horse. We opted to a the 40 pound horse ride nearby.

The cab on the way to the pyramids. Yes, fake fur on the dashboard is typical and no the meter does not actually work.

The Cairo sky during a few drops of rain and a crazy strong dust filled wind.

We road up this hill on the horses and looked out upon the city of Giza. Cairo proper includes Giza, but most people here talk about Giza and Cairo as two cities.

The Pyramids.

Mandatory pretend to hold the pyramid shot. Just wait till I go to the leaning Tour of Piza, there will be on of those too.


Katie, Paul, Chrissie, Faye, Moussad, and Christina.
Fun Group.

A little update on life

Never was there a place where the saying “assumptions make an ass out of you and me” is truer than Egypt. Here are some things it is not safe to assume…

-There is toilet paper in any bathroom.
-The school you work for will explain things to you in English and not only Arabic.
-The matrons will figure out you do not speak Arabic at all and speaking to you in Arabic is pointless.
-The books, courses, and schedule of the school you work for will be explained before week six.
-The grading system will be explained before six weeks into the year.
-That one-hour means one-hour and not four.
-That the electric guy is actually the electric guy and not just trying to get 500 pounds from you.
-That signs outside stores mean what they say, so the gym by your house with the sign “For men, women and children,” allows women, children and men.
-On a bus with 26 seats only 26 people can ride, not 32 people.
-That the letter “p” is pronounced “p,” and not like a “b.” Bizza, Bebsi, Boto, Byramid, I could go on!

Other than learning how to never assume anything, at all, ever Egypt is coming along. Luckily I was warned by my good friend Maya, who told me the it takes at least two months to adjust to the Middle East or Egypt (it is close) and I should not give up until after a good two-months. Cairo has taken a solid two-months to sort of adjust to and I am probably still not there yet.

I have completely readjusted my definitions of clean, sidewalk, on-time, quick, dinner (which is around 11pm), lunch (which is around 6pm), breakfast (which does not really exist), early (which is now around noon) and late night (which is now closer to 4am than 12am), and weekdays (which start on Sunday and end on Thursday), but I am happy to do so. I can now tell whether or not the cab is taking me where I want to go or to Sudan. We have hot water in our apartment. I know the numbers one through 5 and a few vital words for directing cab drivers. We do not have Internet, that might take forever so please do not hold your breathe.

In the meantime I am trying to branch out and make new friends who like to do non-AIESEC things. New friend making was helped by my new roommate Chrissie who know teaches at Kenana. She is ton of fun to go out with and plans on being here for close to three years; she is hoping to go to a grad program at the American University in Cairo. Chrissie was greeted by no one because we were all in Marsa Alam for the feast/vacation at the end of Ramadan. Yeah for Ramadan being over! She had no room and for a while was living in the living room, now there is a wall sectioning off a good chunk of out living room. She does not have a dresser yet, but give it time and it just may happen!

While adjusting I have also gone on some fun tourist trips. The AIESEC bunch took a trip to Marsa Alam and it was nowhere near as awesome as my first trip. Traveling with 30 people who all have different needs and the ability to complain is just never fun. Also singing on a nine-hour bus ride makes me want to cry and scream and hurt people. So, no singing on busses for me ever again. Otherwise I spent two solid days on a boat diving with a good group of five people, all excellent divers and we had a killer time. Our friends who were snorkeling did not have as much fun and the guys who were learning how to scuba might not be certified. Traveling with 30 is never a good idea!

The AIESEC bunch also organized a walking tour of Islamic Cairo, the older part of the city. Beside being kept nice and clean for tourists the area is home to some of the more interesting and “Moorish” architecture in the city and lots of mosques. Our tour started at a glass blowers home who was really happy to have us all, about 20 people, wander through the twisting and turning five stories that was his home. We walked through kitchens and bedrooms to get to the top floor where we were greeted by a jungle of roughly blown glass Chiuly it was not, but I never liked him that much. Actually incredibly cool stuff and as usual my pictures do a better job of explaining than my words, see below! After the glassblowers house we wandered to a beautiful mosque. Religion and churches seem to make more sense to me in a city as crazy as Cairo, they are one of the only calm places you can find. Then we toured a little bit of Khan El Khalily, the tourist trap bazaar, and had delicious Egyptian pizza named Fitir, a yummy end to one very long and fun day.

I went up to Alexandria with one car, aka four people, just for the day and had a wonderful time. During the two-hour drive our happy group stopped at the weirdest roadside stop of my life, Lion or Tiger Town, I cannot read Arabic signs. Whatever the name it was a restaurant/crappiest zoo of your life. They had three tigers, three lions, crocodiles, one hog, llamas, dogs, fish, birds, red-butted baboons, other monkeys, horses, mini-ponies, goats, more dogs, one wiener dog which was caged and looked vicious (Hahaha), and the ugliest animal I have ever seen. If you can figure out what it is I promise to bring you a prize when I get back to the states. All the animals were in 19th century style cages, no room to move and they depressed me. Still, live lions and tigers are pretty cool.

Oh my!

Once in Alex (as the hip locals call it) we went to the Bibliotheque, a delicious Egyptian restaurant, King Farouk’s old summer home-turned vacation get-away/garden/beach, and the Qiatbey Fortress. I ate way too much, walked a little and touched the Mediterranean Sea for the first time, also saw blue sky and breathed non-polluted air.

In between Marsa Alam and Alex I participated in my first official AIESEC official event: an introduction to AIESEC for new members joining through Cairo University. We spent the day at a very nice country club down in Giza, tried to ride horses, but really spent the day napping in large super comfy chairs and finishing a good book. I did not participate in the conference because I had no idea what was going on, I was very tired and I also am not a new member through CU. I did learn a few basics about AIESEC, all very useful and will be saved for another post as this one is already to long.

A bunch of pictures should follow. Excuse my absence October has been a long month and has finished with a very bad cold and some tough stuff, but I will survive and try to make the best of it all!

Next stop the White Desert, more attempted horse-back riding, the Pyramids and beyond!

Islamic Cairo

AIESEC organized a full day of tourist activities around Islamic Cairo. We walked the streets, saw a mosque, Khan el Khalily and ended the night with delicious Egyptian pizza.

One of the many mosques and the beginning of our tourist session.

Typical methods of transportation, on top of the truck, not inside.

Yes, this is an empty room of trash.

Street shots.

Tiny glass animals.

Two of our fellow AIESEC tourists.

Walls of glass.

Looking down from one of the five stories of the glass blower's home.

The name of the mosque, I realized the only way I would remember any names was if I took pictures of signs.

One of the hallways around the inner square.

Inside of the mosque.
Extremely peaceful.

Anna and Faye dominating tourist activities.

Group shot in alley around Islamic Cairo.

The courtyard of the merchant's house.

Bayt el Suhaymi, a remodeled merchant home. The government bought the huge house and has turned it into a tourist activity.

Beautiful wood window screens. All of the woodwork was remodeled in the traditional manner.

One of the dozens of rooms inside the merchants house.